Sep 17 Thu
Do I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
When we are asked if we truly have a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” they imply an emotional, warm, intimate feeling of encounter.
Of course, as Catholics, we may easily respond, “Yes, indeed, I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ every time I receive Him in Holy Communion.”
An emotional response when receiving Communion can be a welcome consolation, but it is often lacking. Mother Teresa of Calcutta turned to a priest during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and lamented, “I feel nothing.”
Would you conclude that she had no “personal relationship” with Jesus in the Blessed Eucharist?
Faith is necessary to enter into communion with Him. The Divine plan is to spark a response of faith rather than promising good feelings. God redirects love of consolations to authentic Christian love. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Faith is tested and strengthened when God suspends his consolations for a time.
Imagine Jesus continuing his sacred ministry in person after the Cross and Resurrection, cultivating friendly “personal relationships.”
Some would hope to render obsolete inconvenient teachings such as, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
True faith, rather, directs our attention to Jesus through the unchanging Deposit of Faith handed down throughout the ages after the death of the last Apostle. And personal relationships are the pastoral duty of his disciples who are commissioned to “baptize all nations” in his name.
Jesus entrusts Himself to the members of His Church. So, our encounter with Him is through healthy personal relationships with his representatives, members of his Mystical Body. Through the Mass—and through the ministry of the ordained priests of the Church—our faith directs us to encounter Jesus in the Eucharist. The mediation of the priest gives way to a direct and true personal relationship with Jesus in faith.
Such a relationship may be unemotional, even dry, plodding, and frustrating. But a ready faith remains spiritually profitable, always ready to say with Saint Peter in times of confusion, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
True faith sticks with Jesus, and recognizes that Jesus sticks with us, through all the trials of life—like the faith of Mary at the foot of the Cross, like the faith of the holy martyrs in the early Church.
Our encounter with Jesus in Holy Communion is the most glorious encounter we can have this side of heaven, the very foretaste of heaven. It is an encounter of faith, but an encounter where faith comes into direct contact with a personal and living Reality. And God and man are reconciled.
Our communion with Him impels us to enter more deeply into a bond of familial love: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Reception of Holy Communion in faithful obedience to Christ is the perfect personal relationship with Jesus, whether or not we feel it. But there is always something sweet and consoling about a good conscience at peace with God’s will.
Excerpts from Father Jerry Pokorsky